Personally I find it hilarious that the zombie brigade is railing against Escorts as if they have access to better healing and defensive abilities... and act as if Maco is some how exclusive to Escorts.

Cruisers who, in the right hands were already nearly unbreakable are now virtually unkillable without less than 3 sci blasting away on them with SNBs, shield strips, debuffs and torp barrages.

There's a problem right there. Who'd even notice if Cruisers got tougher? We expect them to be tough to crack. Escorts, on the other hand, are supposed to have traded that for firepower; but ever since the space sets started getting introduced, that hasn't been evident.

Dunno if I've ever even seen a Defiant-R get killed; I've certainly never managed it myself.